There are three main types of digital audio players:
- Flash-based Players - These are non mechanical solid state devices that hold digital audio files on internal flash memory or removable flash media, such as memory cards. Due to technological advancements in flash memory, these originally low-storage devices are now available commercially ranging up to 16GB. Because they are solid state and do not have moving parts they require less battery power and may be more resilient to hazards such as dropping or fragmentation than hard disk-based players. Basic MP3 player functions are commonly integrated into USB keydrives.
- Hard drive-based Players or Digital Jukeboxes - Devices that read digital audio files from a hard disk drive (HDD). These players have higher capacities currently ranging up to 160GB. At typical encoding rates, this means that thousands of songs — perhaps an entire music collection — can be stored on one player. Because of the storage capacity, devices that also display video and pictures are often hard disk drive based. Such multi-media devices are usually called Portable Media Players or Personal Media Players (PMPs).
- MP3 CD Players - Devices that can play audio files from a CD-ROM in addition to audio CDs.
Apple iPod, the best-selling hard drive-based player
An embedded hard drive-based player (Creative ZEN Vision:M)
An MP3 CD player (Philips Expanium)
History
The precursors to MP3 Players/DAPs were portable CD players and MiniDisc players. Even though the media they play uses digital storage methods, neither is generally called a "digital audio player" because they do not play MP3 or other music/audio codecs, Non-mechanical DAPs were introduced following the popularity of the precursors.
The world’s first mass-produced hardware MP3 player/DAP was created in 1997 by SaeHan Information Systems of South Korea which sold its “MPMan” player in Asia starting in the late spring of 1998. SaeHan’s licensed its player to Eiger Labs which sold the 32MB Eiger Labs MPMan F10 portable flash-based player to the American market in the summer of 1998.
The Rio PMP300 from Diamond Multimedia was introduced in September 1998, a few months after SaeHan’s MPMan and the Eiger MPMan F10. The Rio was a big success during the Christmas 1998 season as sales significantly exceeded expectations, spurring interest and investment in digital music. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) soon filed a lawsuit alleging that the device abetted illegal copying of music, but Diamond won a legal victory on the shoulders of Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios and digital audio players were ruled legal devices. Because of its notoriety as the target of the RIAA suit, the Rio is often erroneously thought to have been first to market.
In 1998, Compaq's laptop engineers made the first hard-drive-based MP3 player and licensed it to a Korean company HanGo Electronics which sold it as Personal Jukebox or PJB-100 starting in 1999. Using a 2.5” laptop hard drive for song storage instead of (then) low-capacity flash memory created significant improvement in space limitations of the earlier DAPs. The Personal Jukebox (PJB-100) had 6.0GB of storage space, which held about 1200 songs or 100 CDs (hence the name PJB-100) and was the beginning of what would be called the jukebox segment of digital audio players.
Apple Computer unveiled its 5GB hard drive-based iPod in October 2001. Having focused on developing an intuitive user interface and using a new 1.8” 5GB laptop hard disk drive from Toshiba, Apple's smaller form factor and elegant industrial design made the iPod a hit with the users of its Macintosh computers. In July 2002, Apple introduced second generation players including iPod models with Windows compatibility through Musicmatch software. Although online music services such as Real Networks’ Rhapsody offered legal music downloads on a subscription basis. The opening of the iTunes Store in 2003 established the business model of selling individual songs for purchase and download at an average price of $0.99.
In 2003, the term "Digital Audio Player" and the acronym "DAP" were first popularized as the name and focus of the website DAPreview.net. The term and the acronym were subsequently adopted by news editors at Engadget.com, one of the most popular technology-related blogs, and they have since become a common way of referencing these devices among the gadget-savvy. [citation needed]
In 2004, Microsoft introduced their Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology under the PlaysForSure brand. This technology allows consumers to rent music from subscription music services such as Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo Music Unlimited and transfer it to their compatible digital audio players. Microsoft did not use PlaysForSure when it released its own Zune music player because of limitations over sharing music between devices [3] and in 2007 announced a new DRM technology to cover more file types than music and video.
Usage/Usability
As digital audio players have spread, new uses have been found for them. This includes podcasting, in which radio-like programs, or even TV-like video feeds, are automatically downloaded into the device to be played at the owner's convenience.
Audio acquisition
All commercially available digital audio players can play music that has been ripped from Compact Discs via computer. In addition to ripped CD tracks, many digital audio players can accept downloaded music from online music stores. However, such stores often use proprietary formats and DRM, which means that the tracks can only be played on suitably licensed and restricted devices. For example, songs you purchase from iTunes might not work on any digital audio player other than an iPod.
Another way of getting audio files is to rip the songs from radio broadcasts. Many players have the ability to record songs played on the built-in FM tuner. Recently, a Swedish company called PopCatcher has developed a technology to save songs from Internet radio and can distinguish between songs, DJ talks, and commercials for convenience. .
Audio formats
Besides MP3, the main formats in use are WMA/PlaysForSure from Microsoft, AAC (the DRM version is from Apple) and ATRAC from Sony, all of which are mutually incompatible.
Some formats are proprietary, such as Windows Media Audio (WMA), and to a degree, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) and MP3. Some may also incorporate restrictive DRM technology, such as Janus and FairPlay, which are often part of certain paid download sites. Other formats are completely patent-free or otherwise open, such as Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Speex (all part of the Ogg open multimedia project), and Module file formats.
Ogg audio format id an open-source option and the format used by Wikimedia Commons. Ogg is the container format for Vorbis, Theora, Speex, FLAC, and many others.
A huge amount of freely downloadable music is available in MOD format from sites such as The MOD Archive[1]. Most MOD files are composed by individuals who allow them to be freely distributed, unlike music by most commercial artists. While today's digital audio players generally do not support MOD files directly, progress is being made on that front with projects such as the TRAXMOD digital audio player. Apple iPod owners willing to run Linux on their iPods may also play MOD files through the MikModule program. For the time being, MOD files can be manually converted into a supported audio format with some music converter and/or player software. It should be noted that due to differences in the file formats, the resulting file will almost inevitably be larger and of slightly lower quality.
Applications of usage
MP3 players have had other media-playing devices supplanted for certain applications. Since some people have downloaded music from the Internet that radio never plays, MP3 players have had the ability to be optimized to comply with peoples' music tastes. One drawback of that for some people is that, people often like to be surprised by radio songs that they never heard before; however the radio has been rendered redundant by other sources of entertainment that play those same songs.
Most modern digital audio players are technically portable media players, as they support video playback.
Controversy
In early 2006, the Consumer Council of Norway brought a case against Apple alleging that the iTunes software infringed on Norway's Marketing Control Act, by locking out competing media players from playing music bought through the iTunes Store and disclaiming liability for any damage done to consumers devices by iTunes Store purchases. By August 2006, Apple had indicated they would work towards resolving the second issue.
In March 2006, the France National Assembly passed the DADVSI bill which was intended to reform French copyright law. One goal of the bill was to criminalise the circumvention of Digital Rights Management (DRM) while at the same time stop DRM from infringing on consumer's "legitimate uses". While the initial drafts would have required companies like Apple and Microsoft to open up their DRM technologies for free to competitors, the French Senate amended the bill to establish a regulatory authority that would consider requests to open DRM technologies. The amendments also allow copyright holders to refuse interoperability requests where lack of interoperability was an intended goal.
Many digital audio player manufacturing companies located in China have been making clones, or similar digital audio players of major brands e.g iPods without licenses or agreements. Despite the objections and lawsuits against these Chinese companies, the Chinese government is not required to take any action to prosecute their manufacturers.
iBox Mediaman, an illegal clone of the iriver iFP-500
